Helen Zughaib (/zəˈɡeɪb/ zə-GAYB;[1] born 1959) is an American painter and multimedia artist living in working in Washington, D.C. She was the daughter of a State Department civil servant.
Her family left Lebanon in 1975 due to the outbreak Lebanese Civil War, and moved to Europe as a teenager, attending high school in Paris.
[2] She moved to the United States to study visual and performing arts at Syracuse University graduating in 1981 with her BFA.
[3] Her themes are centered around hopefulness, healing, and spirituality, using visual arts to shape and foster positive ideas about the Middle East.
[4] She has also been selected for the 2021-2023 inaugural social practice residency by the John Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.[4] Helen Zughaib left Lebanon in late December 1975.
So the family left, leaving their cats behind, and ran through the streets after curfew while snipers were on the roofs of the surrounding buildings.
[4] Zughaib’s work comments on cultural identity, family life, the plight of refugees and displacement in the Middle East, the Arab Spring, and the Lebanese Civil War.
Her work can be found in many notable collections, such as The White House, World Bank, Library of Congress,[12] and the Arab American National Museum.
Shown at a show in Beirut 35 years after she had left, the piece highlights the theme of journey and represents the endless questioning of Zughaib of a possible return to home.
The cyclical nature of the work combines the past sentiments of sadness with future aspirations of return.
Zughaib cites the significance of this piece to her personally, referencing how incessantly writing the same word over again left a pain in her hand that felt “strongly appropriate.
Her idea was to show the fracturing and destruction that war brings upon civilization, citing her own journey from Lebanon through countries such as Jordan, Syria, and France.
Helen titled this piece “Generations Lost” because the effect of war is continuous even if the bombing has ended.
The piece is also Zughaib’s way of honoring these everyday people for their heroics and emphasizing the impact that they have and how it has reverberated to other conflicts such as Ukraine.
[4] Eat the News is an installation in which Helen used enamel paint and newspaper on ceramic plates to force viewers to consume what happened in the Syrian civil war.
She went to the post office, metro, salon, different stores, and the pharmacy and would ask strangers to take a picture of her writing down victim names.
And I would say well, while we're standing here buying peanut butter, this is what's going on.” She realized her effort was not enough so she created a physical installation where individuals would be forced to consume what they are learning about in the news.
The migration series documents the beginning of the Syrian war from revolution, to how it moved to Syria from Tunisia and Egypt.
This is an installation where Helen took three of her father’s dress shirts and had “La tansana” repeatedly stitched on the collars and cuffs.
For Zughaib, she recounts her experience as a young girl in Beirut Lebanon, using her artwork to tell the story of her uprooted life.
Once the Civil War had begun, she remembers living under curfew, not being able to attend school or go outside, sleeping on the floor, and eventually being evacuated.
This book contains 24 full color plates of original art by Helen accompanied by her father, Elia Zughaib’s, stories from his childhood in Syria and Lebanon in the 1930s.
Elia would write down his stories, and, though they were not very long, they were filled with vivid detail of rich culture, lifestyles, and traditions that were then translated into Helen’s artwork.